Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) Care Pathway
Dr. Bourbeau and Living Well with COPD by RESPIPLUS™ have partnered with Aetonix to create a COPD Care Pathway that facilitates better health outcomes, globally with the aTouchAway™ platform.
Dr. Jean Bourbeau has pioneered COPD research at the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre (RI-MUHC). His expertise in the self-management of COPD combined with Aetonix’s powerful virtual care technology, means many COPD patients will benefit from superior care leading to successful self-management of their disease, no matter where they live.
Improve Patient Outcomes 
The aTouchAway® platform dramatically improves patient outcomes through virtual communication, remote patient monitoring, care plan management, and clinical workflows. Its strength is being able to connect patients and clinicians through remote monitoring — crucial as the world struggles with COVID-19.
RESPIPLUS™ will harness the power of Aetonix’s mobile care platform, aTouchAway®, to enhance the delivery of its Living Well with COPD program. This program, supported by more than 40 scientific publications, provides COPD patients with educational resources for self-management while aiding physicians and healthcare professionals.
Aetonix Enters into Dynamic Partnership with RESPIPLUS™ to Enhance Delivery of World-Renowned COPD Self-Management Program
How it works
The COPD Care Pathway runs a daily patient assessment and guides the patient on actions to take to avoid hospital readmission. The patient status will be color-coded and notifications delivered to the care team on the criticalness of the intervention required. The patient will be presented with educational material, based on symptoms identified, to help address issues and avoid unnecessary visits to the clinic. Educational resources include information on inhalers, breathing positions, and other topics.
Frequently Asked Questions 
What is a Care Pathway?
A Care Pathway is a methodology that better enables patients to be connected to their care providers. It can include clinical protocols and workflows, virtual communications (voice and message), educational and coaching material for both the caregiver and the patient, assessment forms, surveys and questionnaires, and vital stats collection via remote patient monitoring.
What’s included in the Living Well with COPD Care Pathway?
With the COPD Care Pathway, patients can expect:
- Guided education sessions covering COPD topics such as, managing symptoms and medication, being active and having a healthy lifestyle, breathing and airway clearance techniques, using and action plan and much more.
- Additional ‘preparation’ and ‘post session’ educational resources to enhance patient integration and self-management
- Daily monitoring of COPD symptoms to help identify exacerbations
Healthcare professionals can expect:
- Simplified follow-up of people with COPD, adapted to their needs and level of severity
- Automated assessment and evaluation forms for easy entry and reference
- Agile process for patients, including notifications and reminders (eg. prompting to complete homework prior to the next education sessions)
Has the care pathway been patient validated?
The COPD Pathways integrated into the aTouchAway platform, are based on the successful results of the Living Well with COPD program (LWWCOPD). This self-management program was originally developed in 1998 and since then it has been tested in multiple clinical studies across the world, and it is supported by over 40 scientific publications. The LWWCOPD program has been adapted to 14 languages and it is used in a variety of clinical settings, attesting the program’s positive effects in improving patients lives while making a more effective use of healthcare resources. The LWWCOPD program is currently run by a non-profit society, RESPIPLUS™.
Can we make modifications to the care pathway for our specific hospital/care organization?
Select changes are available for patient onboarding and consent, as well as the identification of any other relevant and local resources that are useful for patients. For more information on how the COPD Care Pathway can be tailored to your organization’s needs, please contact us.
How would we go about deploying it to our patients?
Our teams at Aetonix and RESPIPLUS™ will make sure to provide your personnel the highest level of training to make sure that they develop the skills to support long-lasting behaviour change in the clientele affected by this chronic disease. Our trainers have extensive expertise in deployment with a focus on quality control and intervention fidelity (using the COPD Pathways as they are intended to).
Is this care pathway suitable for all patient types, such as seniors with zero technical skills?
Yes, zero technical skill is required and the patient interface can be modified and locked remotely to meet the technical ability of the user. The patient types include those affected by COPD. Your clinic may have a varied representation of patients, ranging from young (+40 yrs) and tech-savvy to seniors with co-morbid conditions and some cognitive impairment. The aTouchAway™ platform has been designed to accommodate all these user types.
When is the Care Pathway available for deployment?
Aetonix’s exciting partnership with the Live Life Well Program by RESPIPLUS™ is launching soon! The COPD Care Pathway will be available on February 9, 2021. We look forward to working with healthcare organizations around the world to deliver the best health outcomes for COPD patients.
I'd like to schedule a meeting to discuss our requirements
We would be happy to discuss how we can help your organization implement the COPD Care Pathway. To arrange a meeting, please click here.
Team Members 
Michel Paquet 
Founder and CEO at Aetonix
As a veteran innovator in the technology industry, Michel Paquet’s experience ranges from engineering leadership roles at Nortel, IBM Canada, Wind River Systems, and Intel . Michel has dedicated his time, effort and financial resources over the past 4 years to develop a much needed communications and information sharing platform for seniors and patients with complex health care needs. As the CEO of Aetonix Systems he has demonstrated his extraordinary passion for improving the healthcare experience for patients in Ontario and simplifying communication for those who need it most.
Dr. Jean Bourbeau
MD, MSc, FRCPC (Respirologist)
Jean Bourbeau is the Director of the Research Institute MUHC’s Center for Innovative Medicine, the COPD Clinic and the Pulmonary Rehabilitation Unit at the MUHC Montreal Chest Institute. He has been President of the Canadian Thoracic Society. His work and research on COPD, pulmonary rehabilitation, integrated self-management programs for patients with COPD (‘Living Well with COPD’) have had an impact not only in the field of research, but also in clinical practice at the national and international level.
Maria Fernanda Sedeno
Executive Director at RESPIPLUS
Maria Sedeno is the Executive Director of RESPIPLUS, a non-profit organization committed to improving healthcare professionals and patients’ education in the respiratory field. She has co-authored and led the national and international developments of the “Living Well with COPD” and the “Living Well with Pulmonary Fibrosis” programs. These comprehensive self-management educational platforms support patients in making the necessary changes in their lifestyle to better manage their chronic disease.
What our customers say about us
Using the aTouchAway™ COPD Care Pathway, we have been able to support our patients at home with required respiratory and oxygen therapy, managing them safely and avoiding unnecessary hospital or clinic visits. aTouchAway™ proves to be effective in augmenting patient care while expanding team capacity and saving travel time for our organization.
Miriam Turnbull
VP & GM at ProResp
<span”>Schedule a discovery call
Want to schedule a demo for February 2021, or have any particular questions that you want to be answered as soon as possible? Let’s discuss.
